If I Had a Million Dollars

Being so poor these days, a favorite game to play in my apartment has become "what would you do if you won the lottery?"

This past Thursday we played, "What if your long lost German grandmother died and you inherited 6.6 BILLION?" Items to buy on our list included private islands, yachts, penthouses, Upper East Side brownstones, French chateaus, jets and ski chalets. I'm happy living a modest existence. Even when I had money to burn, my diet would usually just consist of peanut butter, honey, yogurt, bread and cheese and for many years now, my dream has been to own a small ranch out in the country somewhere and raise a couple of horses. But even so, when destitution strikes it's hard not to dream of how much easier your life would be if you didn't have to worry about money anymore.

So as those Hungarian cave dwelling brothers are the latest news story, lets play the inheritance game. What would you do with 6.6 BILLION dollars? You just have to put BILLION in all caps, I'm sorry.

Want to know what I'd do? Yeah you do.

I'd pay off all my student loans and that huge credit card bill where most of my grad school expenses sit.
I'd take care of my roommate's rent for the rest of the year.
I'd tell my dad he could retire and move my parents anywhere they'd like to go. Maybe build them, my sister and aunt that huge multi-house family compound we've all been talking about somewhere.
I'd have my brother quit his work study job and pay for the rest of his college.
I'd finally get a haircut.
I'd buy a huge New York City penthouse in an old building with a garden and a view of the park.
I'd buy a gorgeous home with a mew in Kensington, London.
I'd buy a yacht and hire a crew and sail anywhere and everywhere.
I'd learn how to ski.
I'd have immense libraries in every home.
I'd invest in art.
I'd visit my friends in every corner of the globe and buy them gorgeous things.
I'd spend time alone somewhere beautiful and read and write and be quiet.
I'd see everything in the world that I want to see before I die.
I'd start ticking things off my bucket list.
I'd eat good food every day.
I'd learn how to drive stick so that I could speed around in my new sports cars.
I'd never fly commercial again.
I'd stop worrying.

Food

Food's a funny thing when you're poor. You begin to appreciate every morsel. It makes you value portion control because if you stopped eating that bowl of pasta now, you can eat it again for breakfast. As I took a multi-vitamin today (to ward off future bouts of scurvy) I actually thought, this is pretty big, I bet it'll help fill me up.

My new dilemma is this: The Holiday potluck party. The museum where I work is having one on Monday. I am SO excited to eat food but don't know what in the world I can bring. I'm going home LI tomorrow to pick-up some things for my birthday party this weekend and Debbie suggested I raid my parent's pantry for some items and try to cobble together some sort of cookie from the little amount of flour and baking soda I have. But things aren't always sunny in Syosset these days either. Everyone is feeling the pinch and when you provide services to people who are suppose to have money for a living and their money starts to wear thin, so do you. Quite literally in fact. I've lost two pounds. Which if you ask my doctor, is probably a good thing.

I'm just kidding, I don't have a doctor.

Scurvy

From Wikipedia: Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. Scurvy was at one time common among sailors, pirates and others aboard ships at sea longer than perishable fruits and vegetables could be stored, and by soldiers similarly separated from these foods for extended periods.

It also effects the impoverished separated from these foods for extended periods. Hence the reason why I got it last month. I wasn't as disgustedly forgone as a pirate who wasted away and died from it but for longer than I would like to mention, a random spot on my gum would bleed often enough that it was a silent and extremely worrying concern. And then over Thanksgiving when I went home for a week, it disappeared. Before my sojourn in Syosset, I thought it was perhaps something stuck in my gum or some other mysterious disease but as it went away right when I started eating proper foods I was reminded of a story my friend Wil told me about when he was diagnosed with bachelor scurvy. Here he is talking about his experience:

Senryu: Scurvy's Gonna Get You.

Such is life I suppose. One day you're on top of the world and the next, you have scurvy. When I was writing that report about pirates and scurvy in 10th grade biology I never thought in a million years that one day I would ail of it. And so begins a series of posts labeled: Living in Abstract Poverty.

Crying in Times Square

Sometimes all it takes is someone asking how you are to set you off. And at the entrance for the E train on 53rd and 7th Ave tonight, I had to hang up the phone when someone asked me how I was doing. That day had not been good. That week had not been good. That month had not been good and let's face it, the year wasn't rounding out so hot either.

It feels as if I've travelled through the looking glass. Nothing seems to make sense anymore. I can see it all crumbling down around me and I'm powerless to stop it. It's like a movie; as if there was one small thing I should have done differently in the past that could set things right again. But this is no movie and if I had any money, I'd run away from it all in a minute. I never thought that being poor could change more than just my eating habits but it slowly seems to be effecting everything and I don't wish I had two dimes to rub together to pay my bills but rather I wish I had them to save relationships. Money truly is the root of all evil, especially the lack of it. This doesn't have the romance of Dickens, this has the tragedy of Dostoyevsky. This isn't a chilly English winter, it's a cold and dark Russian tundra. I keep thinking, "If only I can stop feeling sad all the time, it will be better."

I'm horribly morose tonight, sorry. 2009 was suppose to be my year. 2009 was just about the opposite of my year.

One skylight in this ever deepening hole is a new pen pal I've made with a lovely and erudite writer. My own private 84 Charing Cross Road.

+1

Is it alright that I don't really want to see the guy I'm kinda, sorta, seeing. It's ok, I don't think he wants to see me either.
But I do want to see the guy who once saw me but it seems, doesn't really want to anymore. At least not like that.
Life is complicated. Love, doubly so.

I just had a conversation with my roommate revolving around the premise of a Sex and the City episode called "Are we sluts?" She said that she thought something must be mentally wrong with people who have so many partners. Maybe. More likely, I think what has happened is that the spark in us that makes us equate romance with sex gets dimmer and dimmer with each failed partnering and by the time we become rational thinking adults and haven't found that very special life partner, we stop equating sex with love and having multiple partners just stops being a big deal.

For the record (mom), none of this really applies to me. I'm still a sucker.